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What is Wolf Blitzer's job?
He is not now a journalist -- he writes little or nothing for CNN. To the extent that any show he is on reports information to the viewers, the investigative work is done by grunts who make a small fraction of what Wolf makes to verbalize it on camera.
Wolf is not a policy expert. He has not spent time at any think tank, but he does have a wonkish MA degree from Johns Hopkins in International Relations awarded in 1972. After earning his masters, he became a reporter for the Jerusalem Post and he wrote two books based on his work for that publication. Since 1990, Blitzer has worked for CNN -- and since 1999 he has been an "anchor" rather than a field reporter.
What is the function of an "anchor" on a TV or cable news program? He is on the air to provide context -- to cue the start of visuals; to say something while the pictures are rolling; to say something after the video cuts; to ask questions of newsmakers and experts who appear on the show; and, finally, to say something to let the audience know that one bit of news is done and the next bit of news or the next commercial or the next show is about to start.
The perfect exemplar of what an anchor like Blitzer does is to serve as "moderator" at Presidential debates. Probably the least offensive talking head to perform that function would be Jim Lehrer of PBS -- a relentlessly old school TV figure who obviously is sincere in his effort to "play it down the middle" without trying to favor any candidate or faction. But even in Lehrer's relatively benign rendition of the role, the "moderator" has the awesome responsibility of determining where that "middle" is. And make no mistake about this role -- the moderator is there to prevent the candidates from presenting themselves on exclusively their own terms.
Probably the most notorious example of a debate moderator playing a far from neutral role came when CNN's Bernie Shaw asked Michael Dukakis what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered by some guy -- evoking the GOP's talking point of the season featuring Willie Horton. The moderator is assigned the role of deciding what is or is not a reasonable question. And that power comes from no other source but from the owners of the TV networks.
All news programs on TV and cable operate the same way as the Presidential debates. The "host" of the show deploys the full power of the corporation to define what is reasonable, acceptable and true. Professional talking heads are paid obscene amounts of money based on their ability to project sincerity and charm while guiding the viewing audience through the self-serving advocacy of the various sides of the story being told.
This power to define the middle ground is inherent to the medium of television. "Because you're on television, dummy," is the way that Paddy Chayevski expresses it in Network -- somebody has to decide who is on and who is not on the air. Far more importantly, somebody has to decide what is reasonable and what is crazy. A society can take political steps to dilute this power so that no one guy like Rupert Murdoch can define all the news, but no matter how you slice it, the power to chose what is on television -- and what surrounds whatever gets on -- is the most significant power in our culture, so long as TV's one-way communication dominates our political life.
That is what Wolf does on every broadcast -- to define the middle ground. He is a personable voice, a relatively benign personality and he has only one function: to instruct the viewer as to what is reasonable and what is reliably true.
When I was a small boy in the USA, racial segregation was part of the status quo. The television networks covered this issue the same way that they covered the build up to war in Iraq -- they defined the middle ground and let the public make its "choice" between the two "sides." On one side were States Rights advocates like Barry Goldwater and George Wallace who did not want the Federal Government to tell states how to deal with their local laws governing employment and public accomodations. Nobody on "Meet the Press" told Goldwater that he was disengenous or racist for couching his opposition to the Civil Rights Bills in terms of States Rights. On the other side were Civil Rights Advocates, who were frequently asked about violence, Communist influence and why they could not be more patient. The middle ground was, as always, a "reasonable" midpoint between the two extremes of Martin Luther King and Bull Connor.
This was during the heyday of Ed Murrow.
Incidentally, King's special genius was in provoking Connor into acting in a way to tip that delicate balance of editorial impartiality between the arbitrarily defined sides of the story. The closest thing to that phenomenon lately came during the "coverage" of Hurricaine Katrina in New Orleans -- when the reporters in the field started acting like Michael Moore did in his original rant against Wolf Blitzer this week. It took a few weeks for the old "balance" to be reestablished, but the damage to Bush was done -- and we began on the long road to the impeachment of Bush.
I am not trying to second guess the editorial decisions of 1962 here -- I am only pointing out that the structure of television as a communications medium confers decisive power on the people who run the stations. And that power does not come from their ability to spew their opinions. It comes from their power to define what the various voices mean in the larger scheme of things.
Nor am I saying that we should pass some sort of law to "fix" this situation. I am only asking for people to recognize who Wolf Blitzer is -- and who all the hacks like him are. To go on his "show" and to act like he is what he says he is -- just an honest chap hired to help the viewers understand public affairs -- is to help validate his unacknowledged power.
Michael Moore's last three films reached a much larger audience than CNN. He comes to TV needing nothing from the idiot box. For him to scream bloody murder about the role that CNN and the rest of the MSM played in getting this country to invade Iraq is admirable and fitting.
The ground is shifting under Bush's feet, just as it did under the feet of Connor, Wallace and Goldwater. Other means of communication are driving this change in the political landscape. The MSN will define a new middle ground once the dust settles, and it will be just as bogus as every other middle ground it helped to define. My rant is not against CNN -- it is against the otherwise intelligent and literate public in the USA who cannot recognize the sleight of hand that goes into making a prestigious career out of being a talking head like Wolf Blitzer.
Or what that sleight of hand is designed to conceal.
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